by David Ward
Turns out it takes us another four days of hiking some highly challenging hills before Sharon finally bags us a big bull. The Feavers give me a large portion of that catch. I know they see it as payment for my contribution to the hunt, but I don’t need the feed. I’m sure I won’t go hungry. Lots of people give me plenty, and it’s not why I participate. I should simply say “no thank you” and note that I’m just glad for the experience and appreciate being invited along. But I don’t refuse my friends’ attractive offer — I have plans for that meat.
There is no better moment for me than when I can deliver a section of moose to Lloyd and Linda Durnford, the family that most frequently feeds me. It brings me great pleasure to drop a parcel off at that incredible couple’s house. Lloyd’s a loving teddy bear of a man who likes to pretend he’s tough as leather, while Linda is a thoughtful, caring woman with extraordinary household and office skills despite dealing with rickets her entire life. Linda’s stamina is second-to-none. She gets more done in a day than I do a month.
My first moose-hunting experience was with Lloyd, after he shot a five-hundred-pound cow south of Pushthrough and needed a team to help carry out his catch — a posse I was proud to be part of, but, with no previous experience in what was required, I felt lost. I thought long and hard about the slaughter that awaited us and how I’d feel about it. It turned out that while I’d never seen animal innards on such terms before, I found them more fascinating than offensive. Even the way the men hacked out the organs and chopped through the bones with sharp axes, I found more engrossing than gruesome. Or so I said at the time, afraid that if I told anyone otherwise, I’d never fit in in McCallum.
The parts that needed to be removed as soon as possible to keep them from contaminating the corpse were gone. Held together by thirty pounds of thick skin, what was left had started to stiffen, making Lloyd’s moose increasingly unbendable. Movement seemed impossible to me. So I stayed out of the way while my mates carved that body into a condition suitable for transportation. Then the fun began — the actual carrying of the carcass. I found the up and down of it all difficult and the on-and-off-the-boat part nearly impossible. The physical force that was required to carry four enormous portions of dead weight over what the other men insisted was a wimpy distance was a marathon to me. Stumbling around in rubber boots, we climbed across rocks, hills, and brooks, around trees and over cliffs, carrying our load on our backs, on our shoulders, and in our arms.
That style of Sherpa work does not come natural to me. There are parts of the pursuit that I’m just not familiar with — like what to do next, and why. One of the most frustrating parts of this predicament is very few of my neighbours try to teach me. Not that they have bad intentions. It’s just that when you live in a community where everyone shares so much common knowledge, it’s easy for others to incorrectly assume that you know the same things they do. They always stare at me in authentic amazement when they discover otherwise.
So with every passing season, my backcountry inadequacies slowly melt away, yet I’m still not comfortable with watching a moose die — how long it takes before a bull leaves its feet, even after a large bullet has passed through its lungs. I find it difficult to watch a beautiful creature fight for its life. If we didn’t have six Feaver freezers to fill, I would want no part of this killing game. Hunting is not a sport to me — it’s all about seeking sustenance in an isolated outport.
Having said that, I have no patience for folks who take an anti-hunting stance while continuing to consume animal products. Don’t these eaters of flesh who object to all hunting ever wonder where their meat comes from? Do they know how hideous the trip to the slaughterhouse is for the animals they consume? Some travel thousands of miles in the back of a trailer over several days, sloshing around in their own excrement.
Have you ever considered what the kill floor looks like in a meat plant, how your supper’s final days and hours are a more terrifying experience than some moose’s final minutes in a Newfoundland marsh, where all he is thinking about is sex? Have you ever imagined the factory environment your chicken and cow products come from or the densely populated cages your salmon sort of swam in? “I prefer not to think about it,” the anti-hunting animal-eating crowd often say when I challenge their consumption patterns. Cowards, I call them.
We should all have to look our meat in the eye at some point on its journey. We should all have to answer to the fact that most of our meat, chicken, and fish live an existence that’s entirely about profit for the producer and convenience and cost efficiency for the consumer, at the expense of the animals living a horrific life. In the meantime, I’ll sleep better knowing that the meat I’m eating came from a moose that lived free-range on birch and willow shoots and aquatic plants, was shot by a woman who stood three hundred yards away at the time of pulling the trigger, and cleaned by five families that expect to eat every part possible.
Ten
I joke that I’m a Sherpa, but that’s not an accurate thing to say. Sherpas are renowned for their mountaineering skills. My talents are not mountaineering related. Plus, while Sherpa work is wonderful, I want a bigger part of the hunt, and that’s not very Sherpa-like of me.
I phone Ontario’s natural resources office in search of proof that I’d previously passed their hunter education course. I took that class at a time when I taught conservation ecology to students who dreamed of obtaining the same qualification. After a couple of wild goose chases — you can always tell when you’re talking to a civil servant who doesn’t give a damn — I finally find someone who can send a letter indicating I successfully completed that course. This confirmation is useful because obtaining equal education in Newfoundland will prove costly if I need to book accommodation in Corner Brook, where classes are currently offered.
Newfoundland and Labrador’s environment and conservation office requested that letter after I asked how someone goes about getting his first moose licence. While acquiring this document guarantees nothing, it thrills me that I’m one step closer to contributing to McCallum in another highly meaningful way.
I buy a blaze-orange cap to help keep me safe and better-fitting boots to assist with my hiking. I also read a story in Outside magazine about a new kind of hunter. Because of a lack of faith in a food web designed to be dependent on ever-increasing gas prices, these modern-thinking hunters are part of a healthy crowd who want to eat only local meat. They no longer wish to consume food that scientists have screwed with. Plus, they’re athletic — choosing to hunt high country and shunning the idea of shooting from a truck. They also hold high-tech clothing in high regard. Rejecting the idea that cotton is best in the backcountry, they’re spending money on underwear engineered to wick water away from your body. This keen group of carnivores has taken gear normally used by mountain climbers and made it their own. Many are even choosing to hunt with a bow, further distancing themselves from the gang packing gunpowder. I don’t want to part with my .303 as long as I’m in rural Newfoundland — I’ve seen how difficult it is to bring a big animal to the ground — but I do respect those looking for more appreciative ways to participate in the hunt.
McCallum people simply see guns as tools. They don’t view firearms as being a whole lot different than a reciprocating saw or an axe. I remember the first time I saw a gun sitting outside Fudge’s Store. The gun’s owner didn’t want to carry his rifle into the shop but saw no reason it couldn’t lean unloaded against the front facade while he grabbed a few groceries. I’m sure I was the only person who noticed. For the rest of McCallum, it was just another day in an isolated outport, like someone had stood a muddy shovel against the wall. Even store management couldn’t have cared less.
Fudge’s Store is the town hub, the place where information is posted, everything from boil-water warnings to church schedules. Employing seven, Fudge’s plays an important role in moving, and keeping, money in McCallum. So whatever it is you’re after — molasses, veggies, ice
cream, gift wrap, a last-second supper spice, pharmaceuticals, a half pound of screws, a bottle of bourbon, or a lottery ticket — chances are you’ll find it at Fudge’s Store. Unless you’re looking for fresh fish.
The first time Carol and I arrived in McCallum, we wanted to purchase fresh fish more than anything but couldn’t. Imagine a fully functioning fishing village with an outstanding midsize store — and no seafood for sale. Because with everyone so self-sufficient, outport people have no reason to pay for their fish. Even those without a boat have their sources for seafood. But Carol and I had no such network — we were new and unknown, and people were wary of us. Even when we did find someone with fish to share, they generously refused to take our money, unintentionally making us feel like dependents in a community where we were desperate to prove ourselves otherwise.
Our first source of fish was Lloyd Durnford, but Carol and I agreed we couldn’t keep asking Lloyd and Linda for free food. So when McCallum’s Kevin Wellman — the community’s middleman between fishermen and industry buyers — offered to ask the fishers on our behalf if they had a cod or two they might part with, we happily said thank you. Two hours later, Kevin called saying he had what we were looking for, so I ran to the wharf where our catch awaited. After taking some teasing for the way I carried those cod and doing everything I could to make sure no one would witness my unskillful efforts to clean them, I headed up the road, excited about our bounty. But before I left the harbour, I asked Kevin who the donor was — whom we should thank for our lovely meal. “Lloyd Durnford,” he said. Carol and I could have cried. Fortunately for us, Lloyd and his family found this funny, and my clumsy efforts to take care of myself have been a source of humour for outport people ever since.
One of the first things that people lose when they change cultures is their humour. Not that their talent for telling a joke disappears, but because no one in their new culture finds them familiar, a large component of a person’s funniness vanishes. So the wannabe comic gradually gives up. I experienced this in Australia. I discovered that few Aussies found me funny, but the day I landed back in Ontario, I was considered comical again. Newfoundland was no different. Of course, the longer I am in McCallum, the more we understand each other. But I’ll always be unsure about local custom to one degree or another, and whether my one-liners are going to work or not.
The biggest laugh I get in McCallum occurs when I can deliver a comeback in the direction of someone teasing me about the amount of food I consume. It might be at a community gathering — Canada Day, for example, or a fiftieth wedding anniversary — but when I return to my table with an extra helping of pasta loaded with lobster, someone is guaranteed to tease me about the large quantity of food I eat. That’s when I grumpily call out, “I get what I can, because no one around here ever feeds me.” That’s how I land my largest laugh. Because everyone knows how much free food I’m fed. Cod, mackerel, mussels, capelin, lobster, salmon, sea trout, redfish, scallops, hare, ptarmigan, partridge berries, blueberries, bear, bakeapples . . . when mainlanders learn how well I’m treated, they often ask what I provide in return. My answer is usually “nothing,” but occasionally I tell them that I have helped a few people fill out government forms, taught a man how to read music, written an important letter or two, and given the occasional driving lesson to an older-aged licence-seeker. But I actually believe my greatest contribution to this community is that I validate outport people in a way that the world doesn’t.
One McCallum couple had me over for fish-and-brewis, pork scruncheons, fried onions, dried fish, boiled potatoes, and partridgeberry pie. But as good as the company and the cuisine were, what captured my attention was how my hosts packaged up additional dinners and shipped them out to their extended family, before, during, and after our sit-down supper.
I shouldn’t have been surprised — I’ve seen how well this couple’s family members treat each other. Many rural Newfoundlanders continue to participate in this long-gone way of life. I’ve seen how a quartered moose gets divided. How a neighbour will see to it that a couple coming home to a cold house has a hot plate waiting. How a loaf of homemade bread and a jar of jam is always just around the next corner.
The sharing of food in an outport is about seeing that no one goes without. It reminds me of a time in Ontario when I tried to buy some groceries. I say tried to buy some groceries because I knew it was a game of chance whether I had enough money to cover my costs. I gambled and lost. The debit machine said my transaction was not approved, and I knew why. I wanted to scream into the microphone — the one the young woman working cash was using to publicly page her boss — that my money shortage was just a result of some sloppy banking that I’d recently (not) done.
I felt humiliated. I wanted to be invisible. At which point the manager arrived. He did an excellent job of making me feel understood, and he worked hard to ease the shame I was experiencing while we arranged an alternative time for me to pay. Yet I still left the store feeling poor, and I wanted everyone to know that I wasn’t — like being poor was a crime that I needed to apologize for.
That shame-fuelled agony I experienced got me thinking about those who every day risk being told that they have insufficient funds. I wonder what it feels like to truly be hungry. And I worry about the parent who has to put food back on the shelf, knowing she can’t afford it. That’s why I tell my Newfoundland neighbours that, whether they’re acting on behalf of the less fortunate or simply sharing their blessings, I hope they never stop doing such great and important work. I don’t say this because they give any indication that they intend to cease this precious practice. I tell them because they occasionally deserve to have it pointed out to them that they really are wonderful in ways that most of the mainland seldom are anymore.
Eleven
What’s the difference between a celebrity and a pig? Answer: there are just some things a pig won’t do. I learned that joke from Southern Ontario singer-songwriter Fred Eaglesmith and thought it a fitting description of celebrities, because so many stars think so little about self-dignity. But Newfoundlanders are different. Mary Walsh, Shaun Majumder, Rick Mercer — high-profile people highly capable of laughing at themselves and poking fun at others in a respectful way; people who don’t give the impression that they would intentionally say or do something stupid just because it might get them on entertainment television.
But there is a second tier of Newfoundland celebrity that most mainlanders have never heard of — artists like actor/author/musician Joel Hynes, comedian Tommy Sexton, and athlete Alex Faulkner. Discovering these talented personalities has enriched my Newfoundland life and taught me much.
I find it fascinating that I can look Faulkner’s number up in the Bishop Falls phone book. I find it odd that it’s so easy to reach the former professional hockey player, because with every passing day, the possibility of finding celebrities in the phone directory is disappearing. Partly because the majority of public figures carry cell phones, but mostly because we’ve become such a culture of hero worship that famous people don’t feel safe among their fans. It must be worrisome for wealthy athletes to know that every time they go on the road, their schedule is published on the internet and in the newspaper. It wouldn’t surprise me if these sports stars had concerns for their family’s safety.
Not that Alex Faulkner starred in the big leagues. Nor did he play in an era of big contracts. He was, however, the first Newfoundlander to play in the NHL, appearing in one game for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1961 and another hundred for the Detroit Red Wings, between ’62 and ’64. He played a very capable support role for some of hockey’s all-time greats — Gordie Howe, Bob Baun, and Terry Sawchuk, to name a few. Twice he went to the Stanley Cup Finals, before a broken hand and torn knee ligaments cut his NHL career short. He also played three years with Willie O’Ree in California in the WHL — O’Ree being the first black man to play in the NHL. “Willie was my right winger,” Alex tells me. “I used to joke wit
h him that [as his center] I was responsible for putting him on the only All-Star team he ever played on. But Willie was quite a good hockey player and quite a nice guy.”
When I ask Alex about the differences between playing for the Gulls in San Diego and fighting off aggressive gulls in Bishop’s Falls, he laughs a gentle laugh. “Playing in San Diego was beautiful,” he said. “The temperature never dropped below fifty degrees and rarely got over eighty. Plus, I had my whole family down there with me — my wife, Doris, and our two girls and our son. Yes, sir, playing in San Diego was beautiful.”
Alex, clearly a considerate man, has a couple of questions for me, wanting to know how a come-from-away ended up in an isolated outport, and asking, “How’s it been for you?”
“Just great,” I tell him. “These outport people couldn’t be treating me better.”
“That’s Newfoundlanders for you,” he says. “The story goes that when they were shooting the movie The Shipping News, the lead actor [Kevin Spacey] showed up in Newfoundland with two bodyguards, and he took them with him when he went outside for the first time. But after he’d walked down the street once, he sent his bodyguards home. I guess where he came from, he was worried about being swarmed by fans. But in Newfoundland, a couple of people just said hello to him, and that was all they did. He was surprised by this.”
Surprise comes for me when Alex and Doris invite me to lunch. I only phoned hoping to hear a story or two, so being asked to eat with the Faulkner family is a gracious gift. As is the way that Alex greets me at the door to their well-kept Cape Cod home. “Come on in, David. Doris made us food like the kind you’re used to eating in Ontario,” the still-solidly built senior says, extending a firm hand and wearing a warm, welcoming smile.
